Once again, my vegetarian barbecue plans were ruined when the vegetarian crawled out of the marinade. I've got to find a better way to convince them that being eaten is a far, far better fate….
- In yet another example of bad math due to bad data, a piece at the Grauniad describes the £22 billion in annual revenue from a 2% wealth tax on Britain's richest 350 or so families. The article, however, doesn't engage with various ownership-insulation devices — trusts, offshoring, wholly-owned shareholding structures with "par value" shares — used by the hyperrich; nor, more to the point, with understatement of valuation endemic among the if-you-have-to-ask-the-price-you're-gauche set, particularly for inherited land (and, increasingly, other assets). I strongly suspect that adjusting for the bad data — a historical problem with The Times "rich list," used as a proxy — would disclose a substantially greater potential result. But only potential, because this is the number before the well-paid private tax consultants get involved…
- That has multiple trickle-down effects in the arts, too. Consider the fascination with badly-behaved family-controlled empires that makes for frankly unsurprising television (however well acted). Another network's family saga could have portrayed this equally well a decade back, and two decades before that, and three decades still farther back; and so could other "properties" throughout the arts. Meanwhile, consider the "next generation" of creators (not owners)… and realize that they've got it (somewhat) better in Blighty than Over Here. One wonders if writing the first draft of the next Great American Novel meets proposed "work requirements" — but not for very long… or regarding every author or other "worthiness" and "valuation" aspect of the arts, particularly when trying to determine what the output is actually worth — and who owns it.
- But at least it isn't the ruination of a nice Sunday walk. A nice Sunday walk, one might add, on an artificially-maintained course with obscene watering requirements and rampant invasive species, substandard wages for the staff (especially those who don't interact with the players), historical and all too often continuing practices of excluding Undesireables based on their ancestry, and overt exclusion of all other uses of the facilities (particularly including uses by children and the disabled — even baseball/softball is less exclusionary).
- Golfing executives, however, are slightly less ethically dubious than, say, certain purportedly self-regulating institutions. At least one can depose those golf executives regarding influences and conversations on the course. One may not get an honest answer (especially if asking about scores!), but one can ask and get some kind of response. It may not be a comprehensible response (if run through counsel first), but it would be a response — one that by its very evasiveness tends to implicate further inquiry.